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Syria Clamps Down on Bloggers

(New York Times) Robert F. Worth - A draft law regulating online media would clamp down on Syrian bloggers and other journalists, forcing them to register and submit their writing for review. Other Arab countries regularly jail journalists who express dissident views, but Syria may be the most restrictive of all. Most of the Syrian media is still owned by the state. Privately owned media became legal in 2001, but much of the sector is owned by relatives of President Assad and other top government officials. All of it is subject to intimidation and heavy-handed control. The basic "red lines" are well known: no criticism of the president and his family or the security services, no touching delicate issues like Syria's Kurdish minority or the Alawites, a religious minority to which Assad belongs. But the exact extent of what is forbidden is left deliberately unclear, and that vagueness encourages fear and self-censorship, many Syrian journalists say.
2010-10-01 09:32:24
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